🏌️ Jayhawks Set for Big 12 Championship at Whispering Pines
TRINITY, Texas – Fresh off its fifth win of the season, the Kansas Men’s Golf team is set for play at the Big 12 Championship, which begins Monday with 36 holes of play at Whispering Pines Golf Club.
The fifth-seeded Jayhawks will play 36 holes Monday, 18 on Tuesday and 18 on Wednesday in the 54-hole event. Kansas will tee off beginning at 8:22 a.m., Monday and is paired with sixth-seeded Baylor.
All teams are able to go with a six-person lineup, allowing for one substitute after each round. Coach Jamie Bermel will go with a lineup of seniors Harry Hillier, Ben Sigel and Callum Bruce and sophomores Luke Kluver, Davis Cooper and William Duquette.
“Whispering Pines will be a great test of golf for our team,” Bermel said. “I think everyone is looking forward to the event. We have a little momentum going with the win last week, and I thought we had a good week of practice.”
The Jayhawks wrapped up the regular season earlier this month with a win at the Hawkeye Invitational, for their first win of the spring season and their fifth win overall. The five wins in one season is the most since at least the 1968 season.
Kansas enters the Big 12 Championship ranked No. 27 in the country in Golfstat’s team rankings and No. 29 in the latest Sagarin rankings. The conference championship will feature some of the very best competition in the nation with Oklahoma (1), Oklahoma State (2) and Texas Tech (5) all ranked inside the Golfstat Top 5 nationally. Texas is also inside the Top 10 at No. 9.
Oklahoma State won the Big 12 Championship last year at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson by one stroke over Oklahoma. Cole Hammer from Texas won the individual title by one shot over Oklahoma’s Quade Cummins and Oklahoma State’s Bo Jin. Kansas finished seventh, ahead of Kansas State, West Virginia and Iowa State.
Chase Hanna, in 2017, is the last Jayhawk to win the Big 12 Championship individually. Hanna shot rounds of 78-69-70-70 to outlast Doug Ghim and current Masters champion Scottie Scheffler by one shot at Prairie Dunes.
Hillier enters the tournament coming off a win at the Hawkeye Invitational, himself, earning his second career win as a Jayhawk. Hillier shot rounds of 69-70-69 to finish -8 and win by one shot. He leads the team in scoring average entering the postseason at 70.83 and has been the team’s top finisher in each of the last three events.
Kluver, who is second on the team with a scoring average of 71.00, also posted a win this year at the Gopher Invitational, as did Cooper, who won the Windon Memorial in the fall. Sigel is coming off a third-place finish at the Hawkeye Invitational, while Bruce has three Top 5s, two Top 10s and Two Top 20s on the year. Duquette’s top finish this year was a sixth-place finish at the Seahawk Intercollegiate in Wilmington, N.C.
Live stats for the Big 12 Championship will be provided by Golfstat.
